Researchers make use of medical waste

HCM CITY —For nearly 30 years, researchers at the Faculty of Tissue, Embryo and Genetics under Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University have been making use of amniotic membrane, which is commonly treated as medical waste and discarded. Under their hands, it has been processed to heal wounds and corneal damage instead.

Tran Cong Toai, the faculty’s dean, told ThanhNien (Young people) newspaper that the research on transplant materials was conceived in 1989, starting with the application of freeze-dried amniotic membrane into skin grafts for people who suffered serious burns or injuries.

Researchers used amniotic membranes of healthy pregnant women to create biological membranes which then would be applied onto burnt patients using the same technique as a skin graft. Those amniotic membranes had to meet high standards set by the American Association of Tissue Banks.

In 2002, they conducted the project of cell transplant onto amniotic membranes and its therapeutic application. In 2006, the research on keratinocyte cell culture was first implemented. Therein, a small piece of skin from a burnt person was separated to take its stem cell, which would be cultured in three weeks to increase its size up to 25 times. The stem cell was then embedded into an amniotic membrane and implanted on a burnt person’s skin.

“In the 90s, we processed about 10,000 pieces of amniotic membrane, size 10x20cm, a year,” said Toai.

The cost to culture stem cells on a piece of amniotic membrane size 10x10cm was VND1.5 million (US$66). Due to the financial shortage, researchers could not mass produce the stem cells and had to prioritise burnt people with urgent demands for skin graft, according to Toai.

Besides practising stem cells culturing, they do research on the use of coral as human bone replacement with coral samples taken from Binh Thuan Province and Phu Quoc Island with the support of Viet Nam Institute of Oceanography in Nha Trang City.

“Corals are washed, remodeled, implanted with stem cells and cultured in a month. Corals then will gradually turn into bones after a certain period of time. The application of corals is found in several fields including the dental implant or eyeball replacement,” Toai added.

Ngo Van Hong, head of Department of Ophthalmology under Cho Ray Hospital, said that the hospital doctors only used biological membranes made by the faculty for their patients.

Nguyen Minh Khai, director of HCM City Hospital of Ophthalmology, also highly appreciated the impacts of those products on patients, saying most of their patients had eyeball surgeries using the faculty’s products.

However, researchers are pondering how to approach a wider range of patients and hospitals.

“As we specialise in researching and teaching, it is impossible for us to mass produce skeleton replacements and biological membranes. This is the common weakness among Vietnamese universities,” Toai said.

Therefore, the faculty’s researchers have proposed a plan to build a research centre on products’ clinical applications and technological transfer to the university so that more patients can benefit from these medical innovations. – VNS

Việt Nam News is proud to announce the launch of OhVietNam at OhVietNam.vn, the second subsidiary of our newspaper's popular online edition.

With an insider’s perspective, OhVietNam aims to provide readers with the country’s last news in culture, fashion and entertainment. We are also proud to present in-depth featured stories, thoroughly presented with historical and cultural background on various aspects of life in Việt Nam.

We are committed to providing support and guidance for first-time visitors to the country as well as the foreigner community with our local news coverage, health tips and advice on other everyday life related issues.

Our goal is to help visitors and foreigners living in the country to better understand and appreciate Vietnamese traditional and modern cultural value and to help build a friendship bridge between the international community and Việt Nam.

Advertise with us

For advertising inquiries, please call (84) 439332326 or (84) 39332325 or email us at ad.hn@vnsmail.com

Contact us

We’d love to hear comments from you. Anything from what could be done to improve our contents to ideas for stories or even strange, wacky things you’ve seen in Việt Nam.

We place great value in user-created contents. Please don’t hesitate to send us your pieces. Be it a story that moved you deeply during or your personal experience or just great photos that you captured during your amazing journey in Việt Nam.